Robyn Williams shreds the tenets of science

Robyn Williams presenting at the Prime Ministers Awards 2006

As I keep repeating, there’s only ONE thing that makes science different to religion, and that’s evidence. Robyn Williams is the most lauded commentator on science in Australian (read the rave here, he was the first and only journalist to be elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science; a professor at two universities, and received 5 honorary doctorates) yet despite the accolades he mistakenly hails the opinions of paid PR hacks above evidence and reason, and hallows the Blacklist of Approved Climate Sorcerers, sorry, Scientists as if it holds the key to the question of climate sensitivity of a trace gas. (How many “scientists” do you need to warm a planet? Answer: Whatever $79 billion can buy.)

This odd juxtaposition of discussing modern science with neolithic reasoning is unfortunately de rigeur, such is the abysmal state of my profession, known (misleadingly in this case) as science communication. These same commentators who complain about “the people who confuse the public”, don’t seem to realize they’re the ones who lead the pack. They break laws of reason known for two thousands years, destroy the central tenets of science, and conflate irrelevant issues (let’s talk about the moon landing — the moon landing?). No wonder the public is confused.

Here are our tax dollars being used for a character assassination (or three).

Bob Ward

The interview with Robert Ward is one long attack on anyone who speaks against the word of the paid-fraternity-of-climate-scientists. It’s known as Argument from Authority. It is apparently the core philosophy of how Williams reasons — by following the head sheep. Williams is so enamored with this fallacy, he thought a stone age remark by Schneider (below) was worth using – not just once on his program but twice, as if one call to the Pagan leaders of science wasn’t enough.

Stephen Schneider: There is a very, very large number of people who signed petitions saying they didn’t believe in human-induced global warming who had almost no papers on climate, whereas those in the IPCC and so forth, virtually all of them had published papers. So in that sense it was a dramatic difference.

Professor Richard Lindzen

Any real scientist ought to be lamenting that the National Academy of Science stooped to name-calling and witchcraft, instead Williams and Ward are acolytes, helping to stick pins in voodoo dolls, essentially saying: That skeptic from MIT who’s won prizes in meteorology — what would he know — he’s “fringe“. In one word, the media hack with a degree in geology and an unfinished PhD thesis writes off Professor Richard Lindzen who helped develop the current theory for the Hadley Circulation, advanced global understanding of small scale gravity waves on the mesopause, as well as producing over 200 peer reviewed citations, and training 24 PhDs.

Lindzen’s multiple prizes don’t prove he’s right, but how is the public served when paid-PR-commentators are allowed to dismiss eminent professors without any quotes, examples or specific details? It’s the scientific equivalent of offering up a karaoke singer’s “yes or no” opinion about whether Lady GaGa has got what it takes. Who cares?

The grand irony of the non-meteorologist choosing “experts” is lost on Williams. If we are only supposed to get opinions from people-with-packs-of-citations, why, do tell, are we listening to Ward? By Ward’s own reasoning, his opinion is worthless.

The language of Propaganda at work

And of course the most obvious of this is his claim that volcanoes produce more carbon dioxide than humans. That’s demonstrably false. If you go to the website of the United States Geological Survey you will have been able to see for a long time that humans produce 130 times more carbon dioxide each year than volcanoes. You can measure it, it is clear, there is not even room for a mistake, you can’t be mistaken if it is 130 times less.

The language is vehement: Plimer is “Demonstrably false” and there’s “No room for a mistake”? No, no room at all if you ignore 4.3 million underwater volcanoes. Ward has a geology degree, how could he not realize we only monitor a few volcanoes on land (about 700 to get his USGS statistic), and those don’t produce much CO2 while the underwater variety do?

Ward practically calls Plimer a liar: “it amazes me that they believe that they can make these statements that can be shown to be false and yet continue to argue.” Yet it is Ward who promotes the falsities, and Williams who provides the uninterrupted megaphone.

Williams lets Ward get away with outrageous speculative smears: Ward claims Professor Bob Carter wrote one of the worst papers in Scientific History, why? Carter’s unforgiveable sin was to misreference a John Houghton quote.

It includes a quote in there that John Houghton has never said, he’s never written and never said, yet it is in this paper by Carter. So that was wrong

Williams knew, but chose not to point out that Houghton had said effectively the same line in a different publication. The details were, after all, in Carter’s response. Instead of saying: “unless we announce disasters, no one will listen” Houghton had said: ““If we want a good environmental policy in the future we’ll have to have a disaster””. What’s the difference?

But surely, Ward must have other egregious examples of Carter’s mistakes right? Things like, say, using statistical techniques that are so corrupt they produce the same shape graph no matter what the data. (Imagine the scandal! It would be the scientific equivalent of feeding in bus timetables and getting influential global temperatures.) Oh… but wait, that was what Michael Mann did, yet his widely misleading pro-scare-campaign paper was apparently not worth mentioning in the “Worst Climate Paper Stakes”. Mann picked the wrong kind of tree, the wrong point to centre his statistical tool with, and he extrapolated some data, then hid the data from requests as long as he could. That’s better than Carter’s paper?

Like a true publicity writer, Ward claims Carter has “too many errors” to mention:

…almost on every sentence there was a question over its accuracy, and I went through one by one, and in the end I couldn’t write a paper short enough for publication

So it should be easy to be specific, detailed, and list them point by point, eh? Let’s analyze the analysis:

And he goes from making claims about a correlation between temperature and the Sun, he quotes a paper that’s been shown to have used inaccurate data but he forgets to mention that, it’s got dodgy statistics about the impact that carbon dioxide has on temperature,

Try to spot a single coherent point we can discuss — I’m not sure what he refers to: take your pick from somewhere in the 19 page extravaganza that Ward produced. Ward doesn’t seem too interested in helping us understand why he thinks Carter was wrong, he just wants to put in all the keywords.

No point is too minor for Ward

Professor Bob Carter

Carters paper was published in an economics journal but Bob Ward attacks it for being polemical, as if that’s somehow makes it wrong (and since it’s not in a science journal, presumably that means Carter can’t write about the politics of science anywhere without being accused of the deadly sin of “polemics”).

There’s a litany of trite non-errors. How about the not-so-radical idea that Carter claims the IPCC is a political body which Ward thinks is “misleading”. Ward ought rush to let the IPCC know, because they think they’re a government body, it’s written on their website. (“The IPCC is an intergovernmental body…. Governments are involved in the IPCC work…”). Perhaps Ward hasn’t noticed the I in IPCC stands for “intergovernmental”? It’s mindless stuff. No wonder Carter didn’t bother to try to specifically correct Ward point by point.

It’s an analysis by attrition

Carter is right about his major points, yet Ward produces a file of typos and inanities so long, hardly anyone will read it. It allows him to make vague claims about “inaccurate data” and hidden in the fine print it turns out the inaccurate data was made by someone else, not Bob Carter, and when corrected, it doesn’t change the meaning of Carter’s message anyway. Carter’s point after all, was that “the overwhelmingly dominant greenhouse gas is water vapor”, and again, even the IPCC agrees with Carter: “Water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere.” Page 632, Chapter 8, Assessment Report 4.

The bottom line

Ponder for a moment the fact that hundreds of paid scientists are proclaiming a crisis, while thousands of unpaid-with-no-vested-interests-scientists are proclaiming the crisis is not in the atmosphere but in science itself. Meanwhile, Williams and Ward are telling us that we should only listen to the paid scientists: switch off your brain, ignore the vested interests.

When ABC chairman Maurice Newman suggested that climate change skeptics are ignored on the ABC, Robyn Williams emphatically replied that‘he would not give people who were “plainly from a lobby group” air time simply to be balanced’. And Bob Ward is obviously not a lobbyist, right, because he works for a strictly scientific institute, one that isn’t trying to push a message on politicians, business and voters, eh…

It’s mission is to generate world-class, policy-relevant research on climate change and the environment for academics, policy-makers, businesses, non-governmental organizations, the media and the public.

So Williams wouldn’t let lobbyists speak to balance things up. No Sir. Lobbyists are never there for balancing, they’re there to bolster, back and boost…

Williams could have helped the whistleblowers of science and he have could fought for the core tenets of reason, but instead he stands up for the marketing machine of financial houses, for government policies designed to take money and power from workers, and for scientists who hide their data and whose jobs depends on finding a scare.

If you are dismayed by the misuse of your tax dollars, you can write to the Chairman of the ABC or register a complaint.Even if your tax dollars weren’t involved, we all lose in the Western world when the “free media” forgets what science is, and tries to push a policy on the public.

Correction (h/t Chuck) None of the Faculty members of the Grantham Institute would debate Pielke Jnr, only their communications director (Bob Ward) is apparently available. Pielke Jnr has already debated Bob Ward,and wanted to debate a researcher at the Institute, but none of them are willing to do it.Pielke Jnr comments about the last debate, that “not surprisingly, he (Ward) was unprepared to actually debate. So I won’t repeat that experience again.”

They are all too busy on all TEN possible days to have a debate, whilst Pielke is in London…….

“If the Grantham Institute insists on having Bob Ward going around in blogs and in the media seeking to criticize my work — as he did on the disaster issue and has done so more recently — then they have an obligation to come out from behind him to actually engage in intellectual debate. The alternative would be to inform Mr. Ward that they do not wish to back up his various attacks. “

215 comments to Robyn Williams shreds the tenets of science

It never ceases to amaze me how otherwise intelligent people can so easily discard logic, reason and evidence when they have an emotional attachment to an issue. Does anyone know the clinical name for this mental disorder? I’ve been calling it Progressive Brain Rot or PBR Syndrome.

At the advice of Bob Ward on this blog, climate attack dog for the Grantham Institute of the London School of Economics, my colleague Professor Gwyn Prins of LSE invited Nicholas Stern, a member of the Grantham Institute’s faculty, to participate in a public debate or discussion with me on the occasion of my visit to London in November. On that date in November, Lord Stern is otherwise occupied, which is fair enough given what is surely his very busy schedule. So Stern delegated the task of finding another faculty member to participate in a debate to … Bob Ward.

Bob has just written me to explain that no faculty member of the Institute is available on the day that we proposed. I responded to Bob with 9 other possible days that I would be available for which to hold a public event — dates that fall both before and after the Cancun meeting. Ten minutes later, Bob replied that none of these dates will apparently work either.

Here is my view — If the Grantham Institute insists on having Bob Ward going around in blogs and in the media seeking to criticize my work — as he did on the disaster issue and has done so more recently — then they have an obligation to come out from behind him to actually engage in intellectual debate. The alternative would be to inform Mr. Ward that they do not wish to back up his various attacks.

Me, I’ve referred to it as Picasso Brain Syndrome. PBS. The downside being that I think Picasso doesn’t deserve this. It was his art I was thinking of.

“The Picasso-Brain-Syndrome is when a cortex has all the semblance of “normal” in that especially Picasso style– two eyes, two ears, four higher degrees, and no continuity. Massive one sided funding has created an entirely predictable consensus, and it’s creating a mental implosion in some cerebrums — people are simply unable to cope with following the evidence against the opinion. Some people are born to follow authority. It’s a shame when it happens to professors.”

“Ward’s frequent efforts to reduce debate over climate change to tabloid-style mud wrestling is symptomatic of a debate that has lost touch with what matters. It is remarkable to me that an institution of higher learning such as LSE would hire a spin doctor to systematically engage in attacking reputations across the blogoosphere and letter pages of newspapers. Of course, when Bob does rarely engage in a public, scholarly debate, he is cordial and the attacks disappear. I am unaware of anyone playing an analogous PR “attack dog” role in a US academic context.”

Don’t apologise for calling them Sorcerers, it is an accolade in their world.

In mythology, there were three primary ranks of magical adept, the Conjurer, who could create illusions from matter, the Magician who could create matter from energy, and the Sorcerer who could create energy from pure thought, expressed through the medium of words.

Words therefore have their own power, for the energy they produce in the right (or wrong) hands can mobilise whole nations to fight and die for an abstract cause. Witness the German Social Democrats, in the Second World war, or the willingness of young people to martyr themselves for a philosophical belief today.

PR Hacks, as you call them, and “Advertising Executives”, are the modern Magicians and Sorcerers, they create and control energy in society through the medium of words. They take their thoughts and make them your reality.

From brand of soap you buy, to which university you decided to attend, you were influenced through the power of words, backed by the thoughts of somebody who was a propaganda adept. And you probably didn’t give it a thought.

How do you combat it? Start by looking for the speakers’ original thoughts. If there are none, there is a good chance that it is a propaganda puff piece. Then look at the adjectives that are used. If they are emotive, they are part of the spell. Next come the nouns – try substituting other, related, nouns to see if the spell still makes sense (e.g. substitute “gap” or “space” for “gulf”, or “divide”). Finally, the verbs will be your call to action – try the substitution “trick” again, but with relation to time (e.g. substitute “consume” for “eat”, or “saunter” for “rush”). What does the spell tell you now? Does it still work?

By the way, this is why poorly translated advertising is often so hilarious – spells do not translate.

You can bet that Mr Williams, being a journalist and all, will understand this, and has probably built his career on it.

[...] Jo Nova eviscerates Robyn Williams, the ABC's non-science journalist, who has forgotten what proper science is, doesn't have a single sceptical brain cell in his head, but is pretty good on alarmism, pseudo-science, mudslinging and propaganda. [...]

co2isnotevil:
Does anyone know the clinical name for this mental disorder?

It’s called religion and for some reason it is hardwired into the human psychic.

Where ever you find humans or even archaeological evidence of humans you will find religion or archaeological evidence of religion.
At some point in our past it has proved to be a very strong and successful evolutionary driver.

Always as one religion fall another will rise to take its place.
As the Judo-Christian religious traditions have fallen across the Western world the new eco-religion has risen to replace it.
This phenomenon has been noticed and commented on numerous times.

What is interesting, is that these intelligent well-educated people don’t recognise what is happening to them. Probably because in their arrogance they consider themselves to be above that sort of thing.

Robyn Williams is the most lorded commentator – Jo, you probably meant ‘lauded’, but ‘lorded’ works equally well in relation to Robyn Williams. No getting away from his lordly manner.
Why couldn’t Australia have gotten the funny Robin Williams instead?

It sounds like Mr. Williams had better be more careful with his facts in future. If any of these guys had the inclination, they could be ringing up their lawyers and it sounds like an embarassing retraction and an apology would be the least painful of his options.

Ok, time to set the record straight on Volcanic versus anthropogenic CO2 emissions

Do the Earth’s volcanoes emit more CO2 than human activities?

Research findings indicate that the answer to this frequently asked question is a clear and unequivocal, “No.”

Human activities, responsible for some 36,300 million metric tons of CO2 emissions in 2008 [Le Quéré et al., 2009], release at least a hundred times more CO2 annually than all the world’s degassing subaerial andsubmarine volcanoes (Gerlach, 2010).

The half dozen or so published estimates of the global CO2 emission rate for all degassing subaerial and submarine volcanoes lie in a range from 132 million (minimum) to 378 million (maximum) metric tons per year (Gerlach, 1991; Varekamp et al., 1992; Allard, 1992; Sano and Williams, 1996; Marty and Tolstikhin, 1998; Kerrick, 2001). If estimate medians and author-preferred estimates of these studies are used to lessen the influence of outlier estimates, the range is restricted to about 150-270 million metric tons of CO2 per year. The current anthropogenic CO2 emission rate of some 36,300-million metric tons of CO2 per year is about 100 to 300 times larger than these estimated ranges for global volcanic CO2 emissions.

In recent times, about 50-60 volcanoes are normally active on the Earth’s subaerial terrain. One of these is Kīlauea volcano in Hawaii, which has an annual baseline CO2 output of about 3.1 million metric tons per year [Gerlach et al., 2002]. It would take a huge addition of volcanoes to the subaerial landscape—the equivalent of an extra 11,700 Kīlauea volcanoes—to scale up the global volcanic CO2 emission rate to the anthropogenic CO2 emission rate. Similarly, scaling up the volcanic rate to the current anthropogenic rate by adding more submarine volcanoes would require the addition of over 100 mid-oceanic ridge systems to the sea floor.

Global volcanic CO2 emission estimates are uncertain, but there is little doubt that the anthropogenic CO2 emission rate is more than a hundred times greater than the global volcanic CO2 emission rate.

Jo,
Science is generations of incorrects science turned into LAWS due to the vast amount of years these have been taken as absolute.

When something as simple as a coil spring is an IMPOSSIBILITY (created 60 years ago)to the current science that has been hammered into generations of students as 300 year old science continues as our main basis. Never reviewed as new mesurements and new technology emerges. This is why turbines where NEVER understood in science to correctly calculate the ACTUAL efficiency in a WHOLE circle.

Williams knew, but chose not to point out that Houghton had said effectively the same line in a different publication. The details were, after all, in Carters response. Instead of saying: “unless we announce disasters, no one will listen” Houghton had said: ““If we want a good environmental policy in the future we’ll have to have a disaster””. What’s the difference?

Well, I could be barking up the wrong tree here, but the actual quote seems to be saying that only if we “have a disaster” will environmental policy change, while the misrepresentation of Houghton has substituted “announce a disaster”. A bit like the difference between a real wolf, and just saying that you’ve seen one.

So yes, implying that Houghton is crying wolf is pretty low, and deserves condemnation.

Why didn’t ‘the great’ Robyn Williams interview Bob Carter et al when the paper in question was first published ?
Was it convenient or a coincidence that this ‘hatchet job’ was stored up for just the time when Bob Carter was launching his book – ” Climate : The Counter Consensus’.
I smell another ABC/ALP agenda here.

there is one problem you’ve overlooked. Gerlach 2010 doesn’t exist! Therefore the last estimate was back in 2001.

On national radio when the Iceland volcano was erupting I heard an interview with a leading UK vulcanologist. He was talking from Yellowstone Nat Park where he heads a major research team. When he was asked by a listener how much CO2 the Iceland volcano would emit he said he had no idea as no one has accurately measured how much CO2 a volcano emits!! Surely if the knowledge existed he would have known about it.

No one knows how many undersea volcanoes and fuming vents exist. The mantle in much thinner at the bottom of deep oceans then on land so one would expect there to be more fissures than on land. As I’ve pointed out previously they are only just recently discovering how many undersea volcanoes and fuming vents exist and the estimate is around 50,000 yet only 100 have been investigated.

So here we have a dilemma – Gerlach at USGS says he knows exactly how much CO2 the world’s volcanoes emit and Plimer estimates there are thousands yet again we still don’t know. It appears both scientists are estimating.

Climate change skeptics and deniers often promote the wholly false perception in print, websites and blogs that volcanoes outdo humans in adding CO2 to the atmosphere and oceans.

Ian Plimer’s 2009 bestseller Heaven and Earth: Global Warming — the Missing Science is a prime example: “Volcanoes add far more carbon dioxide to the oceans and atmosphere than humans.” … “Volcanoes produce more carbon dioxide than the world’s cars and industries combined.” … “One [submarine] hot spring can release far more carbon dioxide than a 1,000-megawatt coal-fired power station…”

Plimer never offers, nor does he cite sources that offer, supporting evidence for such claims. And he does not provide published estimates of the present-day global volcanic CO2 emission rate. Although studies containing these estimates are among Heaven and Earth’s 2,311 references, the estimates themselves are not divulged. Ironically, these estimates are missing in a book alleged to rectify supposed excesses of missing science.

Published estimates from research findings over 30 years for present-day global emission rates of CO2 from subaerial and submarine volcanoes range from 132 million (minimum) to 378 million (maximum) metric tons per year (MtCO2 y-1). Estimate medians and author-preferred estimates reduce outlier spread and give a ~150-270 MtCO2 y-1 range.

These global volcanic estimates are dwarfed by CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning, cement production, gas flaring and land use changes, accounting for some 36,300 MtCO2 in 2008.

At full capacity, a 1,000-megawatt coal-fired power station releases ~9 MtCO2 y-1, or ~3 times the annual baseline output of Kilauea Volcano, which surely exceeds a submarine hot spring’s output.

Scaling up volcanic CO2 output to the anthropogenic level requires adding on the order of 10,000 volcanoes to the 50-60 normally active volcanoes of the subaerial landscape and more than 100 mid-ocean ridge systems to the seafloor. It clearly would be a very different world if volcanoes added far more CO2 to the atmosphere and oceans than we do.

Jo,
There is a slight error in your update. It is Pielke jnr whoe does not want to debate Ward. Pielke jnr requested a debate with a member of the Grantham Institute’s faculty, but apparently only Bob Ward is available (who is not part of the faculty). Pielke says the debate with Ward is a waste of time.

Spatch – Gerlach doesn’t know either and he’s just bluffing in that article because he was called out for saying in his 1991 paper that humans produce 130 times more CO2 than volcanoes. He has NO evidence for the statement because he doesn’t know how many submarine volcanoes there are. There could very well be thousands of active submarine volcanoes and many of them could be bigger than the Kilauea Volcano which is the only that’s been measured.

Exactly why is Gerlach the gospel truth anyway?? he’s just one scientist.

I read another article by Gerlach where he gives the estimate for a volcano’s CO2 output then shows the figure of how much CO2 is estimated to come from volcanoes including submarine and it appears he’s estimated there are around 20 submarine volcanoes.

They talk about seamounts, not active volcanoes. What is a seamount anyway. Let’s have a look…

A seamount is a mountain rising from the ocean seafloor that does not reach to the water’s surface (sea level), and thus is not an island. These are typically formed from extinct volcanoes, that rise abruptly and are usually found rising from a seafloor of 1,000–4,000 metres (3,281–13,123 ft) depth. They are defined by oceanographers as independent features that rise to at least 1,000 metres (3,281 ft) above the seafloor. The peaks are often found hundreds to thousands of metres below the surface, and are therefore considered to be within the deep sea.

Because of their abundance, seamounts are one of the most common oceanic ecosystems in the world. Interactions between seamounts and underwater currents, as well as their elevated position in the water, attract plankton, corals, fish, and marine mammals alike. Their aggregational effect has been noted by the commercial fishing industry, and many seamounts support extensive fisheries. There are ongoing concerns on the negative impact of fishing on seamount ecosystems, and well-documented cases of stock decline, for example with the orange roughy (Hoplostethus atlanticus). 95% of ecological damage is done by bottom trawling, which literally scrapes whole ecosystems off seamounts.

Bob Ward meticulous dissecting the work of scientists who present inconvenient evidence and analysis … to point to inconsequential errors and oversights… while stumbling around the elephants in the IPCC Assessment Reports.

All this talk about volcanoes and CO2 is unrelated to the climate anyway. Sure, all of the atmospheric CO2 that existed prior to man’s burning fossil fuels originated from natural sources and as long as it was warm enough, biology worked hard to keep this biologically valuable carbon locked up in the cycle of life. Now that man is helping sustain CO2 levels, biomass benefits.

It would be a good thing if there are so many submarine CO2 producers. I can see a day when geoengineering is used to set off undersea volcanoes to enrich atmospheric CO2 for the benefit of agriculture once we have run out of oil …

For those who believe the peak oil scare as well as the CAGW scare, then the best we could do is increase CO2 by another 100ppm or so before we run out anyway.

that bit about ocean acidification being caused by submarine volcanoes is from an article written by Timothy Casey

——————–

Resume – Timothy Casey B.Sc.(Hons.)

Professional Summary

For the past ten years, I’ve worked my way up in the petroleum industry, from chip-logging (“mud-logging”) to well-site geologist and drilling supervisor (“company man”) often consulting in a project management capacity.

It’s thought there are at least 50,000 giant sea mounts in the oceans, each towering more than a kilometre in height. These sea mounts are havens for rich biodiversity as currents swirl around them, bringing nutrients. There are even coral reefs to be found at depths of hundreds of metres. Jason Hall-Spencer discusses the changes expected in marine ecosystems as sea water acidity increases in line with increased atmospheric carbon dioxide.

———————–

This line is worth repeating

Jason Hall-Spencer discusses the changes expected in marine ecosystems as sea water acidity increases in line with increased atmospheric carbon dioxide.

—————–

sea water acidity increases in line with increased atmospheric carbon dioxide.

—————-

increased atmospheric carbon dioxide.

—————-

Did you note that line?

I’ll repeat it again as it’s very important

—————

increased atmospheric carbon dioxide.

—————

Increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is causing the oceans to become more acidic. No mention anywhere of subsea volcanoes causing the oceans to become more acidic.

Lank: How can any estimates of ‘negligible volcanic CO2′ contribution be realistic when these monsters have not been discovered or surveyed?

It’s easy. When you don’t look for evidence you can pretend to be truthful and say that you have found no evidence for anything more than ‘negligible volcanic CO2′. You simply have to parse their sentences and words carefully. Then you must look for what they haven’t said and read between the lines. Even when they tell the “truth” they are lying.

once again a whole series of debates over the ‘irrelevant’ issues – in this case the “CO2 from volcanoes” chestnut. (If) CO2 is a minor GHG player and from what I can gather the GHG total contribution is ~34C warming, of which ~10% is CO2 ie ~3.4C, of which mankind is ~10% ie 0.3C, etc…etc….on top of dodgy thermomter reading adjustments…..

Why keep go on and debating who is right or wrong re: volcanoes?

Its a NON-argument!.
A pi55ing contest between some sports lock?

It so much like how is see the tenuous linking of CO2 emisisons to the need for ETS or carbon tax.! Why have one ( ETS etc) if its nothing to do with the CO2 concentrations and temperature?

Talk about being easily side-tracked.

The debate must move onto why the global (IPCC) push to control world ENERGY? Someone please answer this question.

The Global Volcanism Program (GVP) resides in the Department of Mineral Sciences of the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

The GVP seeks better understanding of all volcanoes through documenting their eruptions–small as well as large–during the last 10,000 years.

The range of volcanic behavior is great enough, and volcano lifetimes are long enough, that we must integrate observations of contemporary activity with historical and geological records of the recent past in order to prepare wisely for the future.

By building a global framework of volcanism over thousands of years, and by stimulating documentation of current activity, we attempt to provide a context in which any individual volcano’s benefits and dangers can be usefully assessed.

GVP also plays a central role in the rapid dissemination of information about on-going volcanic activity on Earth by publishing eruption reports from local observers in the monthly Bulletin of the Global Volcanism Network.

Jones asked Plimer about another of his howlers: he had exactly reversed the findings of a paper he cited. In his book, he claims that “satellites and radiosondes show that there is no global warming”, and gave as his reference a paper by Charles F Keller. Here’s what the paper actually says:

“The big news [is] the collapse of the climate critics’ last real bastion, namely that satellites and radiosondes show no significant warming in the past quarter century. Figuratively speaking, this was the centre pole that held up the critics’ entire ‘tent’. … But now both satellite and in-situ radiosonde observations have been shown to corroborate both the surface observations of warming and the model predictions.”

Spatch at #47…..”I have shown here today that Plimer is proven to be 100% WRONG that volcanoes produce more carbon dioxide than humans.” …

Did I miss something here? By denying the existence of large numbers of active, unexplored seafloor volcanoes and vents is somehow your proof.

Numerous studies have shown numerous active seafloor volcanoes which have never been mapped and explored, let alone sampled for gas venting. The average depth of our oceans is close to 4,000m and they cover the major part of our planet. There are many tectonic plate margins and intraplate volcanic systems beneath this depth which are clearly active but are effectively unknown about thier CO2 contribution.

“For the first time we have been able to examine, up close, the way ocean islands and submarine volcanoes are born,” said Barbara Ransom, program director in NSF’s Division of Ocean Sciences….”Imagery includes large molten lava bubbles three feet across bursting into cold seawater, glowing red vents exploding lava into the sea, and the first-observed advance of lava flows across the deep-ocean floor”

The studies of these sea floor volcanic systems has only just started. For anyone to claim that they can estimate the amount of CO2 produced by volcanic activity is a nonsence.

Dr. Eric Grimsrud and Dr. Ed Berry both live in Flathead County, Montana. As a result of their Letters to the Editor in the Daily Inter Lake, they agreed to conduct an online debate open to the general public. While they live where many consider a remote part of America, their Climate Clash debate is relevant to all of America even into the Halls of Congress.

There is no preset time limit to this Climate Clash debate. It will last as long as it needs to last. We expect the typical response times to be on the order of a week. So, if this fits your schedule you will have ample time to follow along.

Dr. Eric will begin by making his opening statement and his first argument in behalf of “Anthropogenic Global Warming” or AGW. Dr. Ed will follow with his critique. And so the debate will proceed until we all become exhausted.

Can somebody please explain to me the difference between a vent and a volcano?

You see, my problem, living in New Zealand, as I do, is that we have several active volcanos, and they vent water vapour, and hydrogen sulphide, and carbon dioxide, and several other gasses.

White island does it all the time, whereas Ruapehu, and the others, only do it occasionally.

However we do have thousands of thermal vents, especially around Rotorua, which is a town on the edge of a crater lake, and Waitomo, which is a thermal area (used for power generation) on the edge of another crater lake at Taupo. There are others in the South Island of New Zealand at Hanmer Springs, etc. You get my drift.

All of these thermal vents produce water vapour, hydrogen sulphide, carbon dioxide, and other gasses, except they do it all of the time. We like this, because it is a safety valve that stops the whole country going into orbit.

The reason why New Zealand is blessed with so much thermal activity is that we are on the edge of a subduction zone between the Australian plate and the Pacific plate.

This is just one part of a great series of lifts and trenches that stretches from Antartica, through New Zealand, Fiji, Vanuatu, The Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, an then up through the Northern Mariana Islands to Japan, and then further up to the Kamchatka Peninsular in Siberia, and then across to Alaska, and then down the Western seaboard of the United States.

If you look on Google Earth, you will notice that there are volcanos all the way. And where you get volcanos you also get vents, except that vents … well vent … all of the time.

Who is counting these? Who knows how many there are in the subduction area?

Hell, some of the trenches are so far down that we can’t go there even with robotics. But as low as we can go, we still find vents, so it is a reasonable assumption that there are vents all of the way, and all of them pumping out hydrogen sulphide, carbon dioxide, and other gasses.

And cretins tell us that human activity puts out more carbon dioxide than all of this combined, when we don’t even know half of what is out there. Gimme a break!

Spatch, you have been a busy little bee; the volcanic critique of Plimer has been done many times. Two things which work against your reasonably thorough exposition; the first has already been mentioned; and that is the ocean floor is still largely unknown and new discoveries are taking place:

On another technicality; you degenerate into the usual alarmist phraseology of ocean acidification; this is nonsense; the oceans are alkaline. How could they ever be acidic?

They could be more acidic, which is the same as saying “less alkaline”. Maybe we should get technical and talk in terms of lowering the pH, or reducing the concentration of OH ions while increasing the concentration of H+ ions. Its all the same, and is a change in the chemical composition of the ocean.

We can read about and listen to endless comments by the proponents of AGW, and can follow those scientists who have done the science and come to contrary conclusions based on factual evidence, and yet still not understand why the facts are ignored and the science by-passed. It is really quite simple. Money. Most human beings, but fortunately not all, are influenced by money and particularly by large sums of money. Robyn Williams is just one of those. There is no money in doing nothing. The only help the truth can receive is for the lies to become too painful.

Could Robyn Williams be in the same nutty league as John P. Holdren, advisor to President Barack Obama for Science and Technology, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy? John P. Holdren is a disgrace to the scientific community… probably the same with Robyn Williams?

This is just more alarmist terminology; “acidic” vs slightly less alkaline. Do you really think that the average pH of the oceans would drop below 7 with a doubling of CO2? Did it drop below 7.5 at any time in the past when atmospheric levels of up to 100 times today’s levels dropped nearly 100 fold?

Jo, I can appreciate the problems of the decent journalists in ‘science communication’. Those with power, money and influence will attempt to steamroll their agenda over you by whatever means. ‘Health communication’ must be a similar struggle. I am reminded of the brave attempts by Jane Burgermeister to take on big pharma with her science, honesty and truth. They nearly drove her to suicide.

““unless we announce disasters, no one will listen” Houghton had said: ““If we want a good environmental policy in the future we’ll have to have a disaster””. What’s the difference?”

Quite clearly… the 1st quote says that they need to talk (fabricate) things up to get people to listen. The second is a frank assessment that people will only accept good environmental policy when they experience disaster. They are totally different things. Totally.

It is quite staggering to see the term “ocean acidification” attacked as though it is some pseudo-scientific spin invented to exaggerate AGW propaganda, rather than the common use scientific term for a lowering of pH. “Hey mommy I’m getting taller.” “You’re still a short ass son.”

They could be more acidic, which is the same as saying “less alkaline”. Maybe we should get technical and talk in terms of lowering the pH, or reducing the concentration of OH ions while increasing the concentration of H+ ions. Its all the same, and is a change in the chemical composition of the ocean.

John Brookes @59,

And so… …?

The actual truth as I understand it is that various ocean regions may have somewhat different PH but the all stubbornly insist on buffering themselves to stay very near that PH. And it’s always alkaline.

If you have some actual measurements over time that contradict this understanding I will be very happy if you present that data. Some of my favorite meals are critters with shells that would dissolve if their environment became acidic. I would hate to have no more lobster or crab for dinner.

What is the amount of carbon dioxide (by volume, or by weight) that would be required to alter the PH of that volume of water by 1%, assuming perfect mixing?

At the current rate of increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, and assuming that ALL of the increase was absorbed by the oceans, how long would it take to alter the PH of that volume of water by 1%, allowing for observe out-gassing?

Plimer claims that underwater volcanoes produce more CO2 than humans, something he’s not able to actually prove. He also claimed that the US Geological Survey only measured emissions from terrestrial volcanoes. But reality shows that they do. Here’s their website where they say …

The current anthropogenic CO2 emission rate of some 36,300-million metric tons of CO2 per year is about 100 to 300 times larger than these estimated ranges for global volcanic CO2 emissions. … Similarly, scaling up the volcanic rate to the current anthropogenic rate by adding more submarine volcanoes would require the addition of over 100 mid-oceanic ridge systems to the sea floor.

So Plimers already wrong on these two accounts, read Monbiot for more. But let’s look further.

What’s Plimer trying to prove with his unsubstantiated claim that volcanoes emit more CO2? That they are somehow responsible for the increase in atmospheric CO2?

Let’s assume for a moment that the undersea volcanoes are emitting more than humans (we’ve no proof of that, but for now assume that the numerous studies Spatch listed in post 16 are 100-300 times out).

That leaves us with the question, why for the last 2.1 million years did they sit quietly not emitting CO2, then suddenly in the last 150 years they decided to slowly increase their emissions at a rate that fools us humans into thinking we are they cause. Are the volcanoes smartly trying to pin the blame on us humans. It’s a conspiracy of volcanic proportions!!

Jo, your attempt to save Plimer’s credibility was doomed to fail. What were you thinking?

What really gets me going with all of this is the ‘opportunity cost’ of all this wrong thinking.

Think about it – many many billions (not just millions) are spent yearly on pro-AGW research and publicity. Now if you put several billion of everybody’s money in a bin and set light to it – you would rightly get a hiding you would never forget. Yet when governments, NGO’s and businesses essentially do the same thing in the name of climate change – no worries – no harm done…

I say an awful lot of harm is done – think what could do done to make the world actually a better place by spending that money on things known to work or doing some actual ‘real’ research on known problems (cure for cancer maybe? Moon base? quantum computing..).

People really need to start banging on the table about this and saying enough is enough.

You said:
Are you really expecting me to believe that this was not a deliberate attempt at misinformation?

No, it was deliberate. It was done merely to see if the sceptics here were able pick it up.

Here’s another deliberate attempt at misinformation. This time it’s by Dr. David Evans

Are you able to spot it?

Here on this website Dr. David Evans writes:

There has been no significant global warming since 1998 (as Figure 17 shows, and Dr Phil Jones agrees). Yet a quarter of our emissions have occurred since then. If our emissions cause global warming, how come the last 25% of our emissions, concentrated in just 12 years, have not caused further global warming?

Question:
Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming

Phil Jones:
Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.

Did you notice what Dr. David Evans did?

I’ll give you a day or so to pick out his very obvious attempt at misinformation.

Oh goodie, lessons with Spatch; quid pro quo Spatch; Tel picked up your little disingenuity, now you tell us why the Global Mean Standard Temperature [GMST], which is the basis of AGW temperature predictions, is deficient?

As a corollary, when you say: “Here’s another deliberate attempt at misinformation. This time it’s by Dr. David Evans.”, what is actually clear from your quote from Jones is that the question should read: ‘Here’s another deliberate attempt at misinformation. This time it’s by Dr Phil Jones.’ Did you notice what prevarications Dr Phil used Spatch?

Much better! I don’t know how many undersea volcanoes there are, the only number I’ve seen was the one Prof Plimer used, which presumably is an estimate. I haven’t counted them myself.

My view though is much of the rise in pCO2 in the last century is indeed due to people, yes, but I’m a scientist who likes empirically measuring things. The 2XCO2 values I’veseen, which have been empirically measured, seem to land in the range 0.4-0.6 K. If we’ve gone up from 300 to 390 ppmv in the last century then you’d expect about 0.2 K of warming from CO2/N2O/CH4 (ie 90/300×0.6=0.18). The global SST comes in at about 0.4 K/century, so greenhouse gases making up half would be consistent with the rise in solar irradiance over the same period (which topped out in the 1990′s). I cite SST because other effects like soot and UHI are not going to affect SST, and indeed land+sea datasets tend to be higher in anomaly.

So lets be charitable and give CO2 the benefit, call it 0.3 K/century. So if the IPCC says 2 K rise is boiled egg time, then you’ve got nearly 700 years to wait, empirically. Lonnger actually, since 2XCO2 is logarithmic, so most of the bang for our carbon buck has been and gone already.

Much better! I don’t know how many undersea volcanoes there are, the only number I’ve seen was the one Prof Plimer used, which presumably is an estimate. I haven’t counted them myself.

Frankly I think the antiAGW crowd would be better off without the like of Plimer and Monckton for the damage they cause in irresponsible claims. Watch the ABC interview with Monbiot & Plimer and you’ll see how avoids answering a number of questions.

I don’t mind people that make honest mistakes, no scientist is perfect, but deliberately lying about them is another thing altogether. And yes, that would apply to both sides of the debate.

My view though is much of the rise in pCO2 in the last century is indeed due to people, yes, but I’m a scientist who likes empirically measuring things.

Which is good – I agree.

The 2XCO2 values I’ve seen, which have been empirically measured, seem to land in the range 0.4-0.6 K.

- Lorius 1990 examined Vostok ice core data and calculates a range of 3 to 4°C.
- Hoffert 1992 reconstructs two paleoclimate records (one colder, one warmer) to yield a range 1.4 to 3.2°C.
- Hansen 1993 looks at the last 20,000 years when the last ice age ended and empirically calculates a climate sensitivity of 3 ± 1°C.
- Gregory 2002 used observations of ocean heat uptake to calculate a minimum climate sensitivity of 1.5.
- Chylek 2007 examines the period from the Last Glacial Maximum to Holocene transition. They calculate a climate sensitivy range of 1.3°C and 2.3°C.
- Tung 2007 performs statistical analysis on 20th century temperature response to the solar cycle to calculate a range 2.3 to 4.1°C.
- Bender 2010 looks at the climate response to the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption to constrain climate sensitivity to 1.7 to 4.1°C.

I’m no scientist so I have to rely on what the scientific community provides. When I visit antiAGW sites I hear a lot of hate about Hansen, but not much noise about these others that also arrives at similar higher ranges. Then usually they object saying Lindzen is the only source of truth even though he has obvious flaws in his analysis.

From my point of view the weight of evidence presented to me leans towards the higher sensitivity studies.

If we’ve gone up from 300 to 390 ppmv in the last century then you’d expect about 0.2 K of warming from CO2/N2O/CH4 (ie 90/300×0.6=0.18).

But hang on, the climate sensitivity values are also for an equilibrium state. It takes time for a specific level of CO2 to warm the planet to a new heat equalibrium. The 390 ppm level has only just been reached. From Jo’s previous post 1984 had 50% of our emmissions. Of this century most of the time it’s been exposed to lower levels of CO2 so using the 390 figure like this is incorrect.

There has been no significant global warming since 1998 (as Figure 17 shows, and Dr Phil Jones agrees). Yet a quarter of our emissions have occurred since then. If our emissions cause global warming, how come the last 25% of our emissions, concentrated in just 12 years, have not caused further global warming?

Question:
Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming

Phil Jones:
Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.

I’ve read Dr Spencer’s studies (he used a couple of methods) and they look good to me. I’m not a climate scientist but I’ve worked as a scientist for over 20 years (chemistry). I’ve not read the papers you cite – some links would be useful.

You can easily back calculate a rough 2XCO2 if you do what I did and took SST as a reasonable UHI/soot free temperature dataset. (I’m not entirely sure SST will be completely UHI free given places like New York right on the coast, but that would more affect TLT than SST). As I said the long term temperature anomaly rise in ERSSTv3b is about 0.4 K/century if you take the whole dataset. So match up pCO2 at the start (290ppmv) and finish (390ppmv) of the 130 year period and you have about 0.5 K rise for 100 ppmv rise or max possible 2XCO2 of 0.5/100/290 = 1.45 K. But then that includes every influence – you’d need to back correct for the PDO (three peaks, two troughs in the period), the TSI which has been high until this latest solar cycle, and other things like CFC’s which have plateauxed. So 0.6 K looks more plausible to me than the higher values. Add to the temperature record which undercuts Dr Hansen’s 1988 model predictions by a vast amount (even case C, which assumed zero extra CO2 emitted from 1988!), which is consistent with the model forcings being set ‘way too high. The picture to me looks more like modest negative feedback rather than a runaway positive feedback.

Remember, 2XCO2 is logarithmic, so if we’ve not seen a runaway by now we’re unlikely to see one in the future. Even if you just take ERSSTv3b and extrapolate from the full dataset – 0.4 K/century takes a cool 500 years to make it to IPCC’s arbitrary 2 K limit. So do we really need a carbon tax next week?

Nothing. Did you notice what Dr Phil did? But following on from this typical AGW high-handedness from Spatch we now, once again, come to Twinkler’s amphigory about transient sensitivity [TS] and equilibrium sensitivity [ES]. This is a spurious, distracting concept which explains Trenberth’s hollow concern about the missing warming.

Some salient facts; IPCC estimates the ES for 2XCO2 at 3.26C. Temperature went up during the 20thC by 0.6C; CO2 increased by ~110ppm or ~ 40%. On a pro-rata basis temperature should have gone up by 3.26/100 X 40 = ~ 1.3C, but it went up by only 0.6C according to GISS; so on track for the ES temperature is already 0.7C behind the 8-ball.

But it gets worse. TAR gives a value for solar effect on temperature for the 20thC of 0.3C; this was downgraded in AR4 to ~0.16C which is roughly equal to Douglass and Christy’s estimate of 0.14C. So, if we accept AR4 then the 0.6C is reduced by 0.16C to 0.44C for CO2.

But wait, there’s more; what about natural factors like ENSO’s contribution to temperature? The AGW crew like to say that natural factors like ENSO are variable and therefore don’t contribute to trend; that is rubbish for 2 reasons; firstly, there is well documented ENSO asymmetry between the cool and warm phases with the warm phases being warmer than the cool phases are cool in the recent temperature history. Secondly, there were more warm ENSO periods during the 20thC than there were cool periods so that will have contributed to temperature trend. Even Foster et al give a quatified total of between 15-30% for ENSO affects on temperature; it’s probably more but if we go with 30% than ~ 1/3 of 0.6C is 0.2; so we should subtract 0.2 from 0.44 to get the CO2 residue of 0.22C for a 40% increase over the 20thC.

So, what are we left with in this debacle? If IPCC reckons ES is 3.26C and if 40% increase in CO2 has only produced a 0.22C increase in temperature than the remaining 60% increase in CO2 will have to produce a temperature increase of 3.04C; which would give a sensitivity of 5.06C for a doubling of CO2; which is well in excess of the IPCC estimate of 3.26C.

Of course IPCC and AGW says the missing heat is lurking in the oceans; no it isn’t:

The 4.3 million underwater volcanoes figure startled me but that number of underwater vents is plausible.
Who has counted them — why not 4.2 or 4.4 million?

But that’s all beside the point.

Since the atmospheric CO2 concentration has been measured at Mauna Loa, it has risen from ~310 ppm in c.1960 to ~ 390 ppm today.
It’s implausible to me that the Earth Goddess has arranged it so that submarine vents have suddenly become overactive to coincide with accelerated post-war industrialization.

The point is: has this 50 year almost 30% increase in the miniscule CO2 atmospheric concentration (whatever the cause) had any measurable effect, except on plant growth?

No one knows for sure but if it has, it’s certainly not enough to warrant the reversal of the spectacular improvement in human well-being over those 50 years.

“It never ceases to amaze me how otherwise intelligent people can so easily discard logic, reason and evidence when they have an emotional attachment to an issue. Does anyone know the clinical name for this mental disorder? I’ve been calling it Progressive Brain Rot or PBR Syndrome.”

Hehehe, Im loving spatch’s posts…not because he really has no substance to anything he says BUT because he is echoing exactly the kind of behaviour that has so discredited climate science, that everything supporting Mann Made Global Warming is proven and no longer needs to be debated and everything that doesnt support this position is unimportant. I even love how he uses moonbat as some kind of climate authority.

To people like spatch, everything to do with alarmism is certain. Yet as has been pointed out by numerous people with far far bigger brains than anyone who posts here, nothing in science is certain…except I guess if that is climate science. Then everything is certain and what is uncertain is unimportant.

Mailmannz: October 14th, 2010 at 9:23 pm “To people like spatch, everything to do with alarmism is certain. ”

That’s why I call them the PSSPPF – the Paranoid Schizophrenic, Sociopathic & Psychopathic Popular Front.

If they were more open and honest about themselves, they might get more recruits.

eta: Ooops sorry got that the wrong way round, they are the Popular Front for Sociopaths, Paranoid Schizophrenics and Psychopaths, or PFSPSP, and they are recruiting. The PSSPPF is rumoured to be hiding in his basement, and apparently isn’t recruiting.

My theory regards to Robyn Williams is that he was personally very embarrassed to have jumped on to the ‘global cooling’, ice age bandwagon of the 70′s and is desperately trying to wipe that from his memory. He does this by going overboard in the opposite direction. As some may be aware he recently attempted to congratulate himself on the 35th anniversary of his radio show by trying to imply he has been warning us all about global warming since his first show. He didn’t admit that back then his concern was for fossil fuel induced global cooling.

You can read all about ‘A change of belief for Robyn Williams’ in the piece by Andrew McIntyre dated September 4 2010 titled ‘What exactly wasOne hundred metresWilliams talking about?’ at http://andrewmcintyre.org/

For those who don’t understand the reference to the ‘One hundred metres’; McIntyre was referring to the outlandish ‘on air’ claim by Williams that sea levels could rise by as much as 100 metres by the end of the century. Even his beloved IPCC’s worst case projection is only a 59 centimetre rise. Despite all his honorifics, the scientific credibility of Williams does not stand up to scrutiny.

With regards to Jo’s figure of 4.3m undersea volcanoes, it is possible there are that many, but Jo may have just mistyped the well known estimate of 3.4m. Actually 3,477,403 volcanoes to be precise. As pointed out by a couple of others, this figure was calculated in a study published in 2007. In that study oceanographers Hillier and Watts (2007) surveyed 201,055 submarine volcanoes within a specific total area of seabed and from that extrapolated the likely total number of undersea volcanoes at 3,477,403. There has been some debate here regarding how many of these volcanoes would be active anyway and what difference there is between a volcano and a sea-mount?

Earlier research by respected Earth and Planetary Sciences specialist, Batiza (1982) found that at least 4 per cent of sea-mounts are active volcanoes. If that is the case then a staggering 139,096 of the believed 3.48m sea-mounts are likely to be active volcanoes. In dismissing volcanoes as an important contributor to atmospheric CO2 the IPCC relied solely on Kerrick (2001), who did not even address undersea volcanoes in his research.

It also doesn’t take a mathematical giant to consider that over 100,000 active undersea volcanoes could be a much more significant producer of CO2 than the approx 700 land based volcanoes reported on by the USGS to estimate volcanic contribution to atmospheric CO2. In fact, it is also easy to see why an informed geologist such as Ian Plimer could estimate that volcanoes put more CO2 into the atmosphere than man. The numbers calculated by the USGS and promulgated at SkepticalScience, RealClimate and the like are simply not a realistic calculation of the earth’s volcanic output.

Anyone who discounts the impact of extinct volcanoes on atmospheric CO2, may like to read about Mount Gambier in SA near the Victorian border. It is what is known as an extinct volcano which has a beautiful lake (Blue Lake) in the caldera. A very pretty spot. What is interesting is the CO2 levels in that lake. Scientist now realise that even extinct volcanoes have CO2 leaching out into the oceans or atmosphere, and in this case a lake.

There was a lot of discussion here about CO2 induced ocean acidification. Those who are convinced it is caused by human CO2 emissions may like to try and explain why it is only the oceans which have seen this slight drop in alkalinity which is not appearing in lakes which do not sit over volcanic areas!

It does beggar belief that the IPCC, which is supposed to be the pinnacle of climate science, continues to dismiss volcanoes as significant contributors to atmospheric CO2. Almost every day there are new discoveries emphasising the importance of volcanoes in the equation. Some of you may have read the very recent report at ScienceDaily (Oct. 9, 2010) about the discovery of a new hydrothermal vent 500 kilometres south-west of the Azores. It was reported that the discovery of the new deep-sea vent is remarkable because the area in which it was found has been intensively studied during previous research cruises. This shows there is clearly more undersea volcanic activity than scientists have been aware of.

If we don’t know what contribution volcanoes make to atmospheric CO2, how can we estimate what impact if any, man made CO2 emissions have on our climate?

The article went on to highlight that “since the discovery of the new vent, scientists have been intensively searching the water column with a multibeam echosounder. To their astonishment, they have already found at least five other sites with gas plumes. Some even lie outside the volcanically active spreading zone in areas where hydrothermal activity was previously not assumed to occur.”

“Our results indicate that many more of these small active sites exist along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge than previously assumed,” said Dr. Nicole Dubilier, the chief scientist of the expedition. “This could change our understanding of the contribution of hydrothermal activity to the thermal budget of the oceans.
“One of the questions that the team would like to answer is why the hydrothermal sources in this area emit so much methane — a very potent greenhouse gas,” says chief scientist Nicole Dubilier. See http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101007114511.htm

These are real scientists doing proper research and letting the findings fall where they may. This is in contrast to the climate scientist buddies of Robyn Williams who have bastardised the scientific approach, and are more concerned with producing results which will support their own misguided ideological agendas. This poor quality science must continue to be exposed.

Spencer – relies on strong negative feedback from clouds. I agree this could be possible for the short term, but past climate changes suggest that clouds cannot constrain large changes. How is we had such warm temps before if the clouds are acting as a negative feedback? Why didn’t the clouds stop the planet from warming up after the glacial periods.

You can easily back calculate a rough 2XCO2 if you do what I did and took SST as a reasonable UHI/soot free temperature dataset …

As much as I appreciate your efforts to explain this to me, I regret that I lack the capability to follow you or the expertise to judge wether what you say is correct or not.

I’m as far into climate science as I dare to go. I can spot some of the more obvious errors and follow the logic of how climate responds to different forces. For the deeper calculations and interpretation of the data, I leave that for the experts.

As you say it becomes a very complex business when you wish to account for aerosols, albedo, solar changes and a surface temp record that fluctuates wildly with the natural cycles.

Hence I will continue to refer to the experts and their peer-reviewed research for guidance. It’s not always error free, but it’s certainly going to be better than the “web science” that anyone with half an idea can post on the internet.

Add to the temperature record which undercuts Dr Hansen’s 1988 model predictions by a vast amount (even case C, which assumed zero extra CO2 emitted from 1988!), which is consistent with the model forcings being set ‘way too high.

I would hope the models now are far more advanced that Hansen’s. Also I hesistate to place much confidence in critiques of past predictions unless the critique also accounts for things that cannot be predicted. Any past forecast will never know what solar output will be so therefore they will only give a best guess.

Remember, 2XCO2 is logarithmic, so if we’ve not seen a runaway by now we’re unlikely to see one in the future.

It is theorised that the “runaway effect” will only occur if certain tipping points are reached, such as the release of methane from permafrost.

Personally I think there is a lot of uncertainty regarding this and the temperature required to reach such points. I’ve not really read much on this matter.

My concern is that, even without a “Venus-like” runaway effect, the current estimates of change to the climate under a BAU situation would be damaging to our environment and the numerous ecosystems that are currently well adapted to the current climate.

Even if you just take ERSSTv3b and extrapolate from the full dataset – 0.4 K/century takes a cool 500 years to make it to IPCC’s arbitrary 2 K limit.

Linear extrapolation of the full dataset is not what the climate models project.

The specific criticism of Lindzen you pointed to is a little disingenuous, don’t you think? The main complaint is the lack of coverage, yet you don’t even blink about homogenization. Why is the 50% of the planet covered by Lindzen any worse than the 1% covered by NOAA and CRU surface reconstructions? And yes, you are an amateur. Crunch on this for a while.

Per Bode, define a feedback network whose input is solar power and whose output is surface emitted power. The surface emits 384.7 W/m2 at 287K and the nominal post albedo solar input is 239 W/m2 (255K equiv). The ratio of these power densities is the surface power gain, which is about 1.6. This quantifies a long term constraint on the steady state where 1.6 W/m^2 of surface power is required to radiate 1 W/m^2 into space to offset each W/m^2 received. Following this, the planets average opacity to surface emitted power must be 37.5% (1 – 1/1.6). This opacity includes the effects of GHG’s and the blocking effects of clouds.

The measured gain of 1.6 can be predicted by determining the planet’s opacity. HITRAN based simulations show that the average clear sky atmosphere absorbs about 62% of the IR power radiated by the surface. The ISCCP cloud data reports that the 25 year average cloud coverage is 66% and that the cloudy sky atmosphere absorbs an average of 82% of the surface power passing through it. Since half of the power absorbed by clouds and the atmosphere continues into space, albeit delayed, the net opacity can be calculated as the cloud percentage weighted sum of half of the clear sky absorption and half of the cloudy sky absorption, given by .66*.82/2 + .33*.62/2 = 0.373, which is very close to the expected value of 0.375. Notice that the physical linear relationship (assuming clouds are constant) is between changes in atmospheric absorption and changes in power gain and not the changes in temperature inferred when gain and sensitivity have units of degrees K per W/m^2.

Clouds are the control plane, working as a shutter between the surface and space. They absorb surface and solar power, radiating it up and down, with the net effect of reducing the radiated power by as much as 50%, hence clouds appear colder than the surface as seen from space. A steady state equilibrium is achieved as the proportion of clouds modulates the power emitted to space as the weighted sum of a cold power spectrum radiated from clouds (255K) until the average power leaving the planet is equal to the average power arriving (255K). Dynamic cloud feedback actively maintains this balance.

If the surface became 3C warmer, it’s emitted power would increase by 16 W/m^2 to 401 W/m2. The AGW hypothesis states that this much surface warming will result from 3.7 W/m2 of radiative forcing arising from doubling CO2. This much forcing is the incremental power absorbed by the atmosphere when CO2 concentrations are doubled, which can be readily confirmed with atmospheric transmittance simulations. Since the atmosphere radiates about half of it’s absorbed power into space and half to the surface, less than 1.9 W/m2 of the incremental GHG ‘forcing’ has any influence on the surface. The incremental surface power gain required to amplify this into 16 W/m2 of emitted surface power is over 8.

The problem arises when a surface power gain of 8 is applied to the incident solar power. The predicted surface temperature is well over 150C (8*239 = 1912 W/m^2 -> 156C from SB). Clearly, this much gain can’t apply to solar power, so it’s unreasonable to assume it applies to other sources of power directed at the surface, including GHG forcing. Even after backing out the factor of 2 error introduced by the IPCC definitions of radiative forcing and sensitivity, the required gain of 4 and the predicted surface temperature of 87C are still far too high. This failed prediction is sufficient to falsify any non zero possibility of a 1.5C or more increase arising from doubling CO2.

A steady state equilibrium is achieved as the proportion of clouds modulates the power emitted to space as the weighted sum of a cold power spectrum radiated from clouds (less than 255K) and a warm power spectrum radiated from the surface (greater than 255K) until the average power leaving the planet is equal to the average power arriving (255K).

This would never be published in a main stream climate publication. Not because it’s wrong, but because it’s politically incorrect. The problem is that errors which push results in a desired direction are often overlooked. While this common human flaw should be mitigated by peer review, it’s been institutionalized as part of climate science peer review instead.

You really think it’s that complicated? There’s nothing more here than some basic common sense observation, a few easily verifiable known constants, a few well known physical laws and some simple arithmetic. If you can’t follow a simple argument, do you really think you have the intellectual capacity to critique the work of Lindzen, Kininmonth, Spencer and others?

Update: I was out jogging and realised where I’d heard of Idso before, he’s the guy responsible for CO2Science, the website that like to realign the timeframe of when the MWP occurred so it aligns with any warming in a particular study.

It does seem rather suspect that scientists promoting low sensitivity values are being backed by ExxonMobile, but I’ll be fair and reserve judgement for when we can evaluate their actual peer-reviewed work.

So again I ask, why is it OK for CRU, GISS/NOAA surface reconstructions to choose favorable endpoints and extrapolate global behavior from less than 1% surface coverage, while it’s not OK for Lindzen&Choi to pick endpoints favorable to them and extrapolate global behavior from nearly 50% surface coverage?

If you leave it to ‘experts’ to understand, then how to you expect to understand what your ‘experts’ are saying? As far as I can tell, you don’t have good judgment when it comes to deciding which experts to believe. For a topic as complex and controversial as climate science, you should at least be able to understand the basics before you can make meaningful comments or even to figure out which experts to believe.

Kininmonth was luck to get Exxon funding. Because of intense PR pressure from the lunatic left, they haven’t been funding much direct skeptical research lately. It’s really too bad, as they are one of the few corporations with deep enough pockets to make a difference. The sad fact is many oil companies aren’t too concerned. They will still make money and simply pass on the costs to the consumer and as far as they’re concerned, they would rather not deal with the PR mess of people like you who think investment from oil in objective climate science is somehow a nefarious thing.

You should go back and try to understand 108. It’s really a very simple explanation of a rather complex system. Feel free to ask questions.

So again I ask, why is it OK for CRU, GISS/NOAA surface reconstructions to choose favorable endpoints and extrapolate global behavior from less than 1% surface coverage, while it’s not OK for Lindzen&Choi to pick endpoints favorable to them and extrapolate global behavior from nearly 50% surface coverage?

The surface temp reconstructions are using data from around all parts of the globe. You can measure the global temp from a small dataset so long as the dataset is well spread.

The Lindzen & Choi dataset is not well spread as they only examine tropical data.

I’m not sure what you are referring to when you mention “surface reconstructions” and “favorable endpoints” since they reconstruct the temp rather than try to interpret the change in temp.

If you leave it to ‘experts’ to understand, then how to you expect to understand what your ‘experts’ are saying?

Experts are capable of explaing things in simpler terms even though the underlying science may be extremely complex.

Kininmonth was luck to get Exxon funding.

So are a few other older scientists with an opposing view. Seems a few of the people Kininmonth worked with disagreed with his opinion. Do you have a link for his published work?

You should go back and try to understand 108. It’s really a very simple explanation of a rather complex system. Feel free to ask questions.

Thanks for the offer but I’d rather spend my time reading published articles. I don’t consider myself expert enough to critique your efforts so I’d be wasting mine and your time.

I suspect that if you attempt to publish, a hole in your idea will be found. If AGW were this easy to disprove, one of the leading “skeptics” would have published it by now and we could all relax.

There are many would-be scientists who understimate the complexity of a system and then stumble when it comes to reality. You won’t find too many published perpetual energy machines, but you will many find many designs on the internet. Maybe you’re the next “Steorn”.

The surface temp reconstructions are using data from around all parts of the globe. You can measure the global temp from a small dataset so long as the dataset is well spread.

NO NO NO. The selected sites are not very representative and certainly not to the extent required for Hansen/Lebedoff’s justification of homogenization. Why don’t you go and count the number of reporting stations above the Arctic circle or the number of ocean stations that are not in the micro climate of an island or the fraction of mountain stations relative to the fraction of mountains. There’s several degrees C uncertainty in the reconstructed temperatures (homogenization is a form of reconstruction) and as they move to fewer stations and more homogenization, the uncertainty increases even more, as does the alignment error with older measurements based on more stations which can be easily misinterpreted as an anomalous trend.

Ice core trends show an RMS climate change that exceeds 0.8C per century in the 50 year average and satellite shows year to year changes in the global average temperature that exceed 1C in both directions. With this much natural variability and this much uncertainty, how can you put any trust in trends projected by the specious reconstructions? Besides, even the inflated Mann hockey stick represents change that’s well within the expected limits.

There aren’t any holes in my argument. It conclusively falsifies CAGW, provides an alternative that actually works and is consistent with the data. I can also point to the specific errors in papers by Hansen and another by Schlesinger which explain why they can be so wrong about this, yet be so fooled in to believing that they are correct. Your refusal to try and understand betrays your fear of being shown to be wrong. This is a common trait among those who believe in a cause supported by ideological, rather than logical, reasoning.

Sorry mate, you’ll not get anything more from me when you play games like that. Stick to the science next time. Less than $15k a year from Exxon at a time when BP was funding green groups and being Beyond Petroleum? Scientists have to eat too, sometimes they struggle as they sometimes don’t get paid much outside of government funded climatology centres.

One day the TWinkler will realize that it’s a case of “heads they win, tails we lose” when it comes to Big Oil.

I know I’m being ripped off now with fuel prices but that is largely due to taxes. The rip off with alternative/sustainable energy will be much worse when the subsidies are accounted for and it is utterly UNsustainable and uncompetitive without subsidies.

TWinkler, you’re not the first cut ‘n paste cowboy to come here and flaunt their ignorance when it comes to real discussion. You are punching way above your weight and it shows. On your next appearance you might care to enlighten us with what empirical evidence it would take to change your mind. If, as I suspect, you reply that there isn’t any, we will all know that you are really a Twonk(ler)!

Has anybody else perceived a pattern developing in the arguments presented by our recent influx of visitors, espousing the merits of the AGW Greenhouse Gas argument.

Just some examples:

Shelly September 24th 10:11am
Firstly you should probably note the source of the “science” you are relying on here. Do a little background check on CO2Science and see where their funding comes from; HINT EXXON. But let’s not get caught up on that. Let’s do some credible analysis.
They look at each individual study, find a warm part somewhere near the MWP timeframe, then classify that as supporting their theory. The problem is they will redefine what constitutes the MWP timeframe so as to highlight the warm part of the data and to avoid the cooler sections.

Twinkler: October 15th, 2:17pm
Update: I was out jogging and realised where I’d heard of Idso before, he’s the guy responsible for CO2Science, the website that like to realign the timeframe of when the MWP occurred so it aligns with any warming in a particular study.
Idso/CO2Science, it seems is partly funded by EXXON …

and

Shelly: September 24th, 11:21am
Oh so WUWT is the new site for “scientific” research now? If this “research” is so good, why not get it published via a peer reviewed journal?
Ha! Why is it all the “real science” you believe in found on blogger sites?

Twinkler October 14th 1:16pm
Sorry I don’t have all day to read another blogsite pretending to do science. I scroll down to the first few links and all I find is more blogger site references.
Do you have anything a bit more credible. Is there some research done somewhere and published that you could point me to?

as well as

Shelly: September 27th, 12:34pm
I don’t answer your question because I am not qualified to do so. The same as I wouldn’t answer a physicists question about quarks.
I resort to “warmist” behaviour like defering to experts because they will know more about the subject than me. They do not all agree so, as with most sciences, the truth of the subject eventually weeds out the poor science and the truth becomes evident over time.

Twinkler: October 15th 10:22am
As much as I appreciate your efforts to explain this to me, I regret that I lack the capability to follow you or the expertise to judge wether what you say is correct or not.
Hence I will continue to refer to the experts and their peer-reviewed research for guidance. It’s not always error free, but it’s certainly going to be better than the “web science” that anyone with half an idea can post on the internet.

I think their all working off Cram Sheets, and as they frequently refer to Sceptial Science to support their arguments, I ponder if such sheets are being prepared and distributed by John Cook, before sending the faithful out to create mischief.

Bruce of Newcastle, bit of a cop out there mate. You can’t provide links to the research you are pushin, and you can’t find fault with the climate senstivity studies based on empirical evidence he provided.

Then you go and get all sensitive about the dubious funding source. Smells like bad socks to me.

The graph shows the anthropogenic forcings used by the models show large range of total anthropogenic forcing from 0.8 W/m^2 to 2.02 W/m^2 with each of these values compensated to agree with observations by use of assumed anthropogenic aerosol forcing in the range -0.6 W/m^2 to -1.42 W/m^2. In other words, the total anthropogenic forcings used by the models varies by a factor of over 2.5, and this difference is compensated by assuming values of anthropogenic aerosol forcing that vary by a factor of almost 2.4.

It would be helpful if you were to make comments which gave an indication that you had at least a little knowledge of the things you assert.

So, the emissions of SO2 by volcanoes could be entirely responsible for the observed recent rise of atmospheric CO2 (please note that this possibility is consistent with isotopic changes).

In other words, undersea volcanism could be the sole cause of recent rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration even if volcanoes emitted no CO2.

Then your post aqt #106 makes a complete non sequitor by asking:

So you agree then that Plimer is a fraud for claiming that underwater volanoes produce more CO2 than humans?

Say what!?

I explained to you – and you quoted my saying –

undersea volcanism could be the sole cause of recent rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration even if volcanoes emitted no CO2

Either you have reading difficulties or you are being stupid when you respond to that with your question.

Plimer is right!

Then you dissemble by asking:

Also, can you substantiate your hypothesis with any evidence. Is there a research paper which discusses your theory and tested it?

The volcanism explanation is only one of several possible causes of the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration. And it explains the peak in measured atmospheric CO2 concentration around 1940 which Beck reports.

Richard S Courtney, Go pop a cork! Plimer says the volcanoes are producing more CO2 than humans. You try to make up some excuse for him and go way off course and still fail to support him with any evidence. Keep going cause ya making a bigger fool of yaself digging deeper and deeper. As for your paper, it’s behind paywall so who knows what rubbish is in that. “possible causes” – wow Martians might be a “possible cause” too although i wonder why they’d start doing it at the same time we did. Bruce of Newcastle is right for doing what exactly? Putting up some names of people on the payroll of Exxon and ignoring the other evidence. Freekin ingoralists.

Richard Courtney and the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow
Courtney is on the Advisory Board for the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT). CFACT is an environment and policy lobby group that has received over $60,000 from Chevron and over $570,000 from ExxonMobil between 2000 and 2007. CFACT is also a member and organizer of the Cooler Heads Coalition.

Courtney and the Coal Industry
Courtney was a technical editor for CoalTrans International, which describes itself as the “web’s most comprehensive resource” on the coal industry. He was also a spokesperson for the British Association of Colliery Management, a coal industry union in the United Kingdom, and has written opinion papers expressing his concern over the loss of jobs in the coal industry as a result of the UK’s movement towards renewable energy.

Halpern (who hides behind the alias Eli Rabbet to avoid being sued) tells many lies about many people.

For example, as you say, he asserts that I am associated with CFACT. But I am not and I never have been. Indeed, I had never heard of CFACT until another troll posted the same assertion on another thread of this blog.

As I said,

If and when you make a contribution pertaining to the science of this matter then I would be pleased to discuss it with you. Until then I am content to let others judge your blathering for themselves.

The graph shows the anthropogenic forcings used by the models show large range of total anthropogenic forcing from 0.8 W/m^2 to 2.02 W/m^2 with each of these values compensated to agree with observations by use of assumed anthropogenic aerosol forcing in the range -0.6 W/m^2 to -1.42 W/m^2. In other words, the total anthropogenic forcings used by the models varies by a factor of over 2.5, and this difference is compensated by assuming values of anthropogenic aerosol forcing that vary by a factor of almost 2.4.

But your only comment is

LOL. I see a rabbit.

Are you agreeing the importance of this information which shows
(a) nobody knows the value of anthropogenic forcing
and
(b) the climate models are incapable of use for prediction (or “projection”) of climate change
and
(c) the climate models are not capable of indicating causes of climate change?

after reading posts # 131-132.It is obvious that you can not discuss the science at all.

Richard went to the trouble to bring up some published science here as he has done in numerous other threads.To try discussing it with you.

You and so many other AGW believers,come back with off topic blather about funding and organizational connections,as if that is somehow a credible counterpoint.It is not and not only that it exposes your lack of interest in trying to understand what Richard and others are talking about.

It is obvious that you can not focus on the science for long,probably because you know so little of it.

Well is fully quoted from post # 129.I will reply to each part of your words:

Richard S Courtney, Go pop a cork! Plimer says the volcanoes are producing more CO2 than humans. You try to make up some excuse for him and go way off course and still fail to support him with any evidence. Keep going cause ya making a bigger fool of yaself digging deeper and deeper.

Where is YOUR counterpoint to what Richard posted earlier about it?

As for your paper, it’s behind paywall so who knows what rubbish is in that.

LOL,

you first complain that it is behind a paywall (meaning you did not read it) Yet somehow you know it is rubbish.I think what you really mean is that I do not know and I care less what Richard writes about.

“possible causes” – wow Martians might be a “possible cause” too although i wonder why they’d start doing it at the same time we did. Bruce of Newcastle is right for doing what exactly?

Since you never did post a counterpoint,you are just blathering all over the place with B.S.

Putting up some names of people on the payroll of Exxon and ignoring the other evidence.

Yeah since you are too feeble in the science part,it was much easier to try the irrelevant Ad Homonyms part instead.

You seem to have mistaken Joanne’s blog as your own personal “Answers.com”. Nobody here owes you an answer on anything. Try reading some of the background material she has linked to, if you want to make intelligent comments.

Perhaps most folks don’t consider snarky comments as a contribution to the discussion.

But those who want real empirical data would do well to ignore propoganda web sites and to check empirical results for themselves.

The liar implies that I said I think climate sensitivity is low. I did not say that or anything like it. I cited (with both a reference and a link) the range of climate sensitivities used by climate modellers.

But I did not imply anything about the actual value of climate sensitivity.

In case there are any who want to know what the real world (not models) says about the climate sensitivity , I post the following.

I’ve never really liked the use of the word ‘troll’ on blog sites because it is often used (particularly on warmists site), when people do not want to answer valid questions. However, having read some of the contributions to this topic I think I can condone the use of the ‘Troll’ tag.

I think Richard Courtney is right that there comes a time when you have to cease giving the benefit of the doubt that a person is truly seeking logical discussion and information. In fact I think Richard Courtney’s patience was admirable.

Whenever I see someone using ‘SkepticalScience’ as their source of authority I sigh. No one with any real scientific substance would reference that warmist propaganda site. Their leaders threw out the scientific ethics book years ago – just read those emails!

I also find the veneration of Phd’s and peer reviewed papers somewhat tedious. I accept that a person who has earned a Phd in a particular discipline will know a quantity of information on the subject matter of their thesis. But that information may not be correct or up-to-date. There are also many, many knowledgeable and successful scientists who never achieved Phd’s simply because they were too busy working on the practical application of their next project to conform to the academic process of earning a Phd. I know some very smart and learned Phd’s, I also know some stupid ones.

Similarly since when did the peer review system become so venerated? Was it In June 2005, when Seoul University Professor Woo Suk Hwang and 24 co-authors managed to get their fraudulent paper on stem cell research through the peer review process and published in Science? Or was it during the late 60′s and early 70′s when thalidomide was being used by pregnant women and Dr William McBride couldn’t get his paper warning of risks to the development of the foetus published in a medical journal because it relied strongly on anecdotal evidence? Or did the peer review process become so worshipped when The “hockey stick” made its debut in the journal Geophysical Research Letters in 1999 in a paper by Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley, and Malcolm Hughes which built upon a 1998 paper by the same authors in the journal Nature?

If we had relied exclusively on Phd’s and peer reviewed papers we may never have heard of Albert Einstein. He did not have a doctorate or even an advanced degree. He was not at a university working with an in-crowd of consensus scientists. He worked at the Patent’s office and in 1905 at just 25 yrs he had a bunch of non-peer reviewed papers published. One of the papers was theory of relativity which altered the scientific view of the universe. One of the other papers was used for his Nobel Prize years later.

One Einstein biographer wrote “The job at the Patent Office had been a great blessing because it had freed him from the academic pressures to produce and publish results that so often compel you scientists to ‘write a lot of superficial stuff and become a busybody in order to get ahead.”

““unless we announce disasters, no one will listen” Houghton had said: ““If we want a good environmental policy in the future we’ll have to have a disaster””. What’s the difference?”

Quite clearly… the 1st quote says that they need to talk (fabricate) things up to get people to listen. The second is a frank assessment that people will only accept good environmental policy when they experience disaster. They are totally different things. Totally.

And from post 73:

It is quite staggering to see the term “ocean acidification” attacked as though it is some pseudo-scientific spin invented to exaggerate AGW propaganda, rather than the common use scientific term for a lowering of pH.

Matt,

Your arguments intrigued me and I devoted a long search on the generic term, acidification. There are about umpteen gazillion hits, all on ocean-acidification or some less frequent variation such as soil-acidification.

Reading on soil-acidification I find that the authors refer to actually making the soil acidic — PH less than 7. Reading on ocean-acidification the best I can find is a slight reduction in PH that still leaves it above 7 — still alkaline.

The first quote above demonstrates your good grasp of politics. If you want a constituency how do you get it? You can’t tell people they have no problem because that tells them they don’t need you and so they don’t follow you. Much less do they send money your way. So you tell them they have a problem — as bad a problem as you can come up with — and that only you can solve it for them. How do I know this? Because in more than 70 years I’ve never seen a politician who didn’t tell me I had a problem and only they can solve it. In over 70 years I’ve never had anyone try to sell me something or get me to do something with any pitch but that I need it; it will make me better off or fix some problem I (supposedly) have.

The second quote shows your relative ignorance of science. I did study chemistry and even though I was probably not the best student of the subject that my teachers ever saw, I remember what defines acidic and alkaline. The verb to acidify means to make the PH less than 7 (see the definition of “acidify” on Merriam-Webster Online for instance). John Brookes notwithstanding, a negative change in PH that leaves it above 7 cannot be described as making anything more acidic, only less alkaline.

This ocean-acidification nonsense is being sold, as you describe, by lying about the problem to get attention. It amazes me that you find this acceptable. But then, AGW is being sold the same way, is it not?

By way of analogy — if I’m driving my car at 50 MPH and then I slow it to 25, can I say I’ve put my car more in reverse?

Cool. Lots of thumbs down from the trolls. I see I’m getting under their skin. You warmist trolls are a bunch of cowards. You can’t logically argue the science or for that matter, follow simple scientific reasoning, so you resort to idiocracy (did you see the movie?). You’re self deluded into thinking you’re somehow above it all with a noble cause, save the planet, blah blah blah. I would bet that there isn’t a single one of you who would give up your ends, if your means of bogus science was unambiguously revealed to be the sham it is. Face it, you’re not motivated by understanding climate science, as I am and most skeptics are. You have some other motivation which the fabrication of CAGW somehow supports. Well, you’re going to have to find some other cause to bolster whatever your real agenda is because CAGW is dying.

Thanks for the insults, mate. If you read my posts you will see I kept to the science and cited studies directly (and linked them if you had bothered to look at my previous post). I did not point to partisan websites except to point directly to a study with data. I was hoping TWinkler would likewise directly link to the papers he cited, whereupon I would hope to read them. However I would not just go hunt for some papers from SkepticalScience, which I prefer not to patronize (I might change this view if Dr Cook changed the name of his blog to something moreappropriate ).

You will note as a cross check I also derived a rough empirical 2XCO2 myself using NOAA’s own data. I said up front my preference is to measure such things empirically, although the theory is a useful guide. My experience as a scientist is that the world is complicated and theories can miss bits of reality – good scientists expect that and look to improve their theories, not insult people.

No one complains if someone pokes and prods the cosmological Standard Model, they welcome it – this is true sceptical science.

“By way of analogy — if I’m driving my car at 50 MPH and then I slow it to 25, can I say I’ve put my car more in reverse?”

The term is decelerate.

This process of ocean acidification has the word acidic in it because the carbon dioxide dissolves in seawater to produce carbonic acid. Get it yet?

Only a small amount of dissolved CO2 forms carbonic acid. It does not make the water acidic and is neutralized by the natural buffering that keeps the PH above 7. If this buffering did not take place seawater would long ago have become as acidic as a can of 7Up.

A little rigor and discipline in the use of terms would benefit this whole mess. Since the ocean remains alkaline it cannot be said to be made more acidic.

I played loose with the physics just as you play loose with the chemistry. Get it yet?

to get links to these papers
- Lorius 1990 examined Vostok ice core data and calculates a range of 3 to 4°C.
- Hoffert 1992 reconstructs two paleoclimate records (one colder, one warmer) to yield a range 1.4 to 3.2°C.
- Hansen 1993 looks at the last 20,000 years when the last ice age ended and empirically calculates a climate sensitivity of 3 ± 1°C.
- Gregory 2002 used observations of ocean heat uptake to calculate a minimum climate sensitivity of 1.5.
- Chylek 2007 examines the period from the Last Glacial Maximum to Holocene transition. They calculate a climate sensitivy range of 1.3°C and 2.3°C.
- Tung 2007 performs statistical analysis on 20th century temperature response to the solar cycle to calculate a range 2.3 to 4.1°C.
- Bender 2010 looks at the climate response to the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption to constrain climate sensitivity to 1.7 to 4.1°C.

p.s. families and women asylum seekers to be released to the community, and it appears bipartisan support is likely – god bless those Greens eh… creating opportunities for the majors to not be w*nkers even if you guys don’t like their climate policies.

Lets try the example differently; two solutions one is PH 14 the other 13. soak your hand in the PH 13 solution till it hurts then go to the doctor and describe how you were injured. I’ll hope you don’t use the word acid when speaking to the doctor.

Maybe this will be easier: Pretend you are a scientist teaching a class. Draw a line left to right and divide it into segments 1 to 15. Now at the extreme left (1) imagine the color of the line is blue the other end yellow (15) imagine that those colors blend to green in the center. Now select two points on the right say 13 and 8 and describe the color difference of those two numbers. Would you say “more blue” if your career depended on the answer being accurately understood by a class listening to your description?

You have blathered on and on using the most unreliable of sources available to support yourself. skepticalscience is anything but. Joanne calls it an ambush site. It’s that bad! You demonstrate no grasp of critical thinking, logic or even common courtesy. I wash my hands of you!

MattB,

You can try to distract and obfuscate if you want to. But you are now exposed for what you’re doing, not by me but by others. So have fun!

PS:

Matt, I hope you’re never the victim of a pathologist who doesn’t understand or care about the nuances of terminology and so gives your surgeon the wrong information that he will subsequently use to try to save your life.

Words have well defined meanings. That’s why we have dictionaries. Years ago I read an article in my local paper describing a talk given to the local school board in which some “expert” declared that it’s quite alright if the student says pony when reading the word horse. After all he said, the two are the same thing. I resisted the temptation to write a letter to the editor and say, “Yes, I agree with him. And I’m sure that for the same reason he’ll agree with me that when I read his name I can say, jackass. After all, the two are the same thing.”

Bruce of Newcastle we are still waiting for your appraisal of the climate sensitvity studies. waiting waiting waiting. whilst Bruce of Newcastle ingores ingores ingores

luckily I don’t define the activity of HCO3 so I don’t need to discuss it.

you guys don’t like the term acificiation – too bad. i can agree that the ocean is not an acid but it is heading towards a lovel ph level (towards an acidic level) through the production of acid. cry all you want. acificiation is the term used.

If I had two liquids, one pH 13 and one pH 8, and asked “which of these is more acidic?” would your answer be “neither” ?

MattB @158,

Have you stopped beating your wife yet?

How would you answer that question? I will answer you the same way you answer me.

Hint: beware, both questions are a trap.

Shallow lazy thinkers will buy any brand of snake-oil you offer them.

The critical thinker on the other hand, always questions what’s offered. When someone tells you that you must do this or not do that, whatever it is, you should always ask this question. What does this guy gain or lose if I do or do not do as he says? Answer that question — do some research if you don’t have enough information — and you’ll be a much wiser man. It’s important to discover the motivation behind anyone who wants influence over you.

Playing fast and loose with the meaning of words is just such a case. It allows others to manipulate you. Claiming that a PH reduction from, say 8.7 to 8.3 makes the ocean more acidic is a monumental distortion of the truth.

Try as you might, words do not create reality. They simply point to one of two places. For you, it is to the content of your imagination which you pretend to be the only reality that counts. For most of the rest of us, words point to some aspect of reality – what is – fact not imagination. As such, we can agree on what we are talking about because we are talking about the same thing and can examine that thing out there.

The content of your imagination is irrelevant to both us and the rest of realty. That is because you are talking about something that is not real. It exists only inside of what passes for your mind and is totally inaccessible to us. We can speculate about your motivation for acting they way you do but even your motivation is irrelevant. All we need to know that anything you say is noise that is not connected to reality even by being false. Your posts have the form of actual communication but they have no content.

Your agreement with this is not necessary just as your disagreement is irrelevant and without effect upon what actually is. As an experiment, try standing in front of an oncoming speeding bus, pretend with all your might that the bus is not there, report back – if you can.

I’m not saying it does Roy, but I’m not about to ignore the evidence to support a higher climate sensitivity figure, and cling to one low one, just because the majority of papers support a higher value.

It seems many people here like to ignore them. It’s almost as if they wish to deny their existence.

@sunsettommy, how do you know it was John Cook? or are you just plucking one out?

oh and congrats on your highly successful forum.

This is what I wrote at post #169:

Yeah John Cook probably posted at my forum about 10 days ago in the Guest forum area as Guesty.There he wrote:

I am the forum owner,thus I have full access to all IP’s that are logged with every post made in the forum.I have internet tools I use to track them and this one led me to Australia.John has been known to plant in various blogs and forum that are skeptical in nature.

Plus after my reply to his drivel.He has not come back like the chicken he has been known to be.He is a coward and will not leave the safe confines of his crappy blog.Where he has a bad habit of deleting civil comments that show him up.

I see that Twinkler is in thrall with that stupid blog.That alone convinces me that some people simply have no skill in divining the obvious misleading answers that John Cook makes up to create confusion.

Lubos Motl made a point by point reply that easily exposes the intent that John Cook has to try supporting a long dead AGW hypothesis.It is typical that cowards like you have not come to the defense of John Cooks,cooked up baloney in my GUEST forum.

What is stopping AGW hypothesis lovers from using my Guest forum?

Why are AGW hypothesis supporters avoiding my forum so hard? Because of the warmist/alarmist odd fear of my forum,it is a haven for skeptics who does not have to put up with trolls and run around debates.

There are several problems shared by all of these papers. Most assume that all or most observed change is caused by CO2 changes. Just about everything published by Hansen starts out to the effect, ‘Our model which assumes CAGW predicts CAGW’. They basically assume that CO2 causes ice to ebb and flow amplifying it more than the water vapor amplification that is also claimed to be happening. Hansen even goes to great lengths to say, yes, we know CO2 lags temperature, but for a reason he can’t explain, it’s still caused by positive feedback. The guy is a nut job who wouldn’t know objective science if it hit him in the face. Paleo reconstructions like these often fail to account for Milankovitch forcings. Hansen claims these are ‘controversial’ and really doesn’t account for them. They also ignore the amplification effects of the asymmetry between the 2 hemispheres. They ignore the fact that as the Earth’s axis is more tilted. cold concentrates at the poles. while when the Earth’s tilt is less, cold is less concentrated and ice grows towards the equator. You should line up orbital and axis variability with the ice core records. Just about every major peak and valley in the temperature record has a direct correspondence to a specific combination of Milankovitch forcings. These sensitivity estimates also fail to recognize that the climate system gain is significantly higher when it’s colder. Once ice forms, there’s no differential reflectivity between clouds and the surface and this results in a higher sensitivity. The glacial and interglacial periods represent limits of the climate system and CO2 levels will have little to no effect on these limits. We are in a relatively cool interglacial, so there is some upside in temps possible, but if you pay attention to the Milankovitch forcings, they are all heading in the direction of cooling. This is what people noticed before the global warming hysteria kicked in and why scientists were worried about an ice age. Yes, an ice age is coming, but it’s 10′s of thousands of years in the future. It’s unfortunate that CO2 isn’t as powerful as you want it to be. Otherwise, our distant decendants might have a chance of stemming the coming ice age. Even the most dire consequences of CAGW pale in comparison to the bulk of N America and Europe covered in km’s of ice. None of the references you supplied had any physics or unimpeachable science. All are speculative interpretations of paleo data where the author is already assuming that CO2 is driving temperature. Try again. Look for some real science this time.

I was referring to ocean-acidification. And when someone who is a chemist by training and profession agrees with me about correct terminology (go back and look) then I know I’m right. So if you want to fly in the face of a rather crushing weight that says you’re wrong, be my guest. But I won’t go with you.

Climate sensitivity is another matter. When you use the stuff you use to support yourself don’t expect anyone to agree with you. skepticalscience is anything but skeptical. And what they point you to is of the same ilk and I won’t debate it.

It’s also moot because it’s pretty clear that there just isn’t any greenhouse effect. Try this link and see what you think.

twinkler, re 188
There’s no new theory in anything I’ve said. It’s all freshmen level physics. What use would a paper on Conservation of Energy be? You have a brain, you should try and apply it, only then will you be able to see past the deception. If you can’t even grasp the basics, then your opinions are meaningless anyway. Now either refute my comments in 184 or go away.

Do you even read the references you provide? In almost every case, in one place in the paper it talks about all of the uncertainty and assumptions in the models, but despite the warnings and caveats, some time later in the paper they ignore their own advice and speculatively jump to conclusions. They give you the false impression that they actually considered their own warnings. Anyway, since you lack the courage or knowledge to objectively discuss the science, or even identify a paper with actual scientific content, I have no interest in continuing this discussion.

I see you know how to use google. This is why I use ‘co2isnotevil’ so fools like you may accidentally learn something as you try to find something to hold against me. BTW, I won that won that little debate hands down. You need to pay less attention to the idiots in the peanut gallery and more to the content. Of course, you’ve already demonstrated that you are incapable of understanding even basic scientific arguments, especially when they conflict with what you want to believe, so your opinion is actually an endorsement that I’m correct on all counts. Of course, I already know that to be true (unless someone can overturn the laws of thermodynamic). I’m done with you as well as you seem to have nothing to add to the conversation.

Hint: moving garbage from one place to another doesn’t change it from garbage into something useful. It remains garbage.

What about the papers is garbage? Without evidence to support your claim your statement is baseless.

Don’t you guys just wish it would all go away!!

You can bet your last dime that Bruce would not waste his time on something found on skepticalscience. That site is a trap for the unwary (you apparently, among others). So the fact that you moved what is certainly garbage to another place so Bruce would not have to get “dirty” is a monumental failure to understand the message on your part (“dirty” is a dead giveaway or should be and you said it, not I).

Has Bruce responded yet?

Thumbs up and down don’t bother me nor does what you think of me. Anything from skepticalscience will most likely be rejected by anyone here for the reason I just gave you. But you don’t seem to have the wit to realize it. Garbage is garbage no matter where you put it.

All too true Mark D; they respond (answer would be the wrong word) with another C&P splattering of their favourite authors. As long as it’s been published in their favourite Phil Jones approved journals then it’s gospel.

George has shown time and time again that they are incapable of a sane discourse of fairly basic physics. They have admitted that they are not scientifically qualified to discuss it. But hey, they can do C&P.

this is your idea of publishing science? you put it on a website and expect that makes it true and verified by peers. lol

I am merely explaining some basic concepts about the English language meaning of the word “published”, and one possible mechanism for information to be presented for public viewing. You are welcome to invent your own language with words meaning whatever you want them to, but that’s another matter…

In terms of the additional concept of “peer review” (which you now bring into the argument) this has nothing to do with publication. Peer review may be done in public or in private or by following a whole host of different schemes. If you believe that peer review is somehow important in determining truth then by all means define the process that you believe is “peer review” and explain how this determines truth.

I may be the least qualified to offer opinions but these days I have to fight back the urge to laugh when peer review is mentioned. It seemingly never meant what AGW believers want it to mean. And then we’ve all seen what CRU did to it. The idea that only certain approved of people, using only a certain approved of process to get their ideas presented to the world is monumental hubris and just plain arrogance.

Einstein was a clerk in a patent office and apparently not a very good student into the bargain when he began work on relativity. By today’s “standard” we should throw everything he did in the paper shredder. Yet the whole world of physics took notice. In those days it seems that the quality of one’s work counted more than one’s credentials.

Just a thought: if Einstein’s peers had reviewed his work they would have been snowed under by it. If you’re right you’re right, janitor, patent office clerk or PhD in six disciplines. Such men as Morse, Marconi, Eastman, Bell, Edison, Wright brothers and Curtiss were all without training and credentials when they did what they did. But they profoundly changed our world nevertheless.

Congratulations Ms Nova on unleashing a backlash against science that is obviously supported by most of your ill-informed readers here. Your denigration of Robin Williams, a man who has done more for science journalism than you ever will, is shameful. This is not to mention your denigration of climate scientists. You have willingly joined the money grubbing mining and oil giants in trying to deceive the people of this country in regard to the efficacy of climate science. Shame, shame, shame.

Suck it up princess. Nobody here denigrates scientists, only the advocacy driven, noses in the trough pseudo-scientists and their cheer leaders like Williams.
The shame-for perpetuating a scam on the public-belongs to Williams and lemmings like you.

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